The future makes me feel like a chick.

Let me back up. As you know, the comic strip is on vacation. A big reason is that we’re looking for a new house. (By “new” I mean “not antediluvian like our current one.”) My wife spends countless hours poring over real estate listings on the net, where searchable databases are updated throughout the day. She downloads all the particulars - lot & house specs, school & utility districts, et al. - the usual stuff agents want you to know. They include photos of each place. Sometimes there are adorable “virtual tours” in glorious Quicktime. Generally there’s a link to Yahoo Maps or some equivalent, affording a view from space of the domicile in its natural habitat.

How cool is that? We are totally living in the future here. Everything you want with a couple left clicks.

It ain’t enough.

I’m notoriously skittish about commitment. Buying a house is like adopting a dog: it’s hard to tell if it will bite you in the ass. Faced with this paralyzing decision, I turn to the old, frayed comfort of nerdity. To wit, I’ve got a bookmark list of alternate information sources. Between the photos on a listing, various satellite images and Google Street View, I can piece together most floor plans despite agents’ attempts to embellish them. From county property records I can apply exact measurements and even use Google SketchUp to model it in 3D. In half an hour I can take a virtual stroll around the place, or judge how our furniture will fit.

Dig deeper and there’s more. Worried about drainage problems? I can view the area’s contour lines to a one-foot resolution. I can pull up a catalog of flood plains and storm drains. Crime? I can list every complaint in the past few years within a thousand feet of the house. I can pull up the addresses of registered sex offenders (that’s a pleasant one). I can tell you traffic patterns. I can tell you if any endangered species live nearby.

I can peruse tax records on the current owner. I can read everything he’s ever done on the internet. If the house is near a traffic camera, I might be able to tell you what he’s doing right now. And it’s not even that time-consuming.

Face it. This future we live in is creepy, geeks-shall-inherit-the-earth stuff. And it makes me feel like a chick.

Specifically, this chick. If you don’t recognize her, that’s Theora Jones, a character in the 1980’s TV show Max Headroom. The cyberpunk series took ace reporter Edison Carter through a dystopian future in which the homeless are harvested, TVs have no “off” switch and citizens vote through overnight cable ratings. Heady, prescient stuff.

Carter handled the two-fisted legwork, but he got nowhere without Theora, his “controller.” She worked at the TV station and guided him by radio. There was nowhere she couldn’t go by clickity-clacking on her trusty computer. Ubiquitous security cameras gave her virtual omniscience. Internal schematics of every building were laid bare on her screen. She snatched control of locks and lifts and sprinkler systems. Her nimble fingertips touched everything. (Is it getting hot in here..?) This gal was a badass on the wires, not to mention easy enough on the eyes that twenty years later my hormones have yet to recover.

I, it should be noted, am not so easy on the eyes. (But I didn’t go on to marry Corbin Bernsen, so it’s a wash.) I do feel kinship though to swift-fingered Theora. How long before I’m able to clickety-clack into random security cameras or raise and lower barrier arms in parking garages? We’re halfway to Twenty Minutes Into The Future. And I like this power. It makes me feel more secure in my decision-making. Lucky I’m a good guy like Theora, right? I mean, aren’t I?

Come to think of it, I’m also in the process of selling my current house. It’s listed online and everything.

I’ll be right back. I just need to close the curtains.

Theora, is that you?